John,
Your points well taken. It's probably too big a step to make that recommendation unless there's evidence that there is eccentricity in gear. As you point out, there can be a lot of variation in how the mount is used from fixed installation to setup for each session. From what I'm learning there are ring gears made of different materials. In my case, it's black, so probably anodized aluminum. The original worm was steel and now there's a OPW with brass.? Steel worm on an anodized ring gear? I'm not sure what the thinking was.
I would not suggest rotation of the RA ring gear as a matter of course... Any eccentricity or variation can change the PE . The recommendation for indexing is to get repeatability.? There is also an issue with slew limits which requires that the relationship between DEC axis and RA position be maintained. It's a matter of procedure to maintain CWD. If you want to use stored PEC then you need to maintain the relationship between CWD, worm gear and DEC axis orientation across the clutch.?
